Buckley said, “Ah,” half turned, and dropped like a piece of carpet.
The belligerent attitude instantly evaporated from the group behind the stricken man. “Gracious,” some one muttered foolishly. They all joined in a stooping circle about the prostrate figure. It was seen immediately that the skull was broken—a white splinter of bone stood up from a matted surface of blood and hair and dirt. Buckley’s eyelids winked continuously and with great rapidity.
A mingled concern and deep relief swept through Gordon Makimmon. He knew that, had the stone not been thrown, he would have killed Buckley Simmons. He wondered if Tol’able had done him that act of loyalty. It had, probably, fatally wounded its object. He turned with a swift, silent look of inquiry to Tol’able. The other, unmoved, dexterously shifted a mouthful of tobacco. “Whoever did that,” he observed, “could sure throw a rock.”
A crowd gathered swiftly, cautious and murmuring. Simmons was lifted on a horse blanket to the flooring by the counter. There was an outcry for a doctor, but none was present, and it was agreed that the wounded man must be hurried into Greenstream. “He won’t get there alive,” it was freely predicted; “the top of his head is crumbled right off.”
X
Gordon found Meta Beggs on the outskirt of the throng; she was pale but otherwise unshaken. “I was sure you were going to shoot Buckley,” she told him.
“So was I,” he returned grimly.
“Will he die?”